Fencing has a wide variety of purposes such as outlining property boundaries, providing animal enclosures and creating snow barriers. Fences typically consist of upright fence posts, braces, which support the upright fence posts, and barbed wire strung between the posts.
Braces may be attached to the upright posts for a number of reasons. First, bracing maintains the tension in barbed wire connected to the upright posts. Second, braces are used to generally support the fence. Such support is needed to prevent animals from breaking out of the fence or to support the weight of snow in the case where the fence is acting as a snow barrier.
There are several different ways to connect a brace to an upright post. For example, the brace can be connected between adjacent upright posts either perpendicular to each post or on a diagonal. The braces can also extend from one upright post diagonally to the ground.
Several varieties of posts may be used as either upright posts or braces. For example, two types of posts commonly used are tee posts and pipe posts. Tee posts are named because their cross-sectional shape resembles a "T". Tee posts are usually made from metal and have protrusions on one face to allow the connection of barbed wire. Tee posts come in various standard cross-sectional dimensions, such as American or Canadian standard size tee posts.
Pipe posts are sections of round metal pipe. Pipe posts, like tee posts, come in various cross-sectional sizes and are often used to construct fencing on school playgrounds. Unlike tee posts, pipe posts are not readily driven into the ground, so they are usually anchored into concrete within pre-dug post holes.
Connectors are required to attach braces to upright posts. Connecting a brace post to a tee post has traditionally presented problems because of the odd cross-sectional shape of the tee post. Many patents have issued with different bracing connectors. Typically, a connector fits over the tee post and is secured with a wedge, hammered between the connector and tee post, which is difficult to remove once in place. The prior art connectors all seem to have unique advantages but lack the flexibility to interconnect fence posts and braces on steep and irregular terrain, to accept both tee posts and pipe posts, and to adjust to the various cross-sectional sizes of posts, and to interconnect posts and braces at various angles and at various positions along their lengths.
Illustrative of such patents is Wagner, U.S. Pat. No. 4,889,322, which discloses a bracing system having a rectangular collar secured to a tee post by a wedge. A socket is attached to the collar for holding one end of a brace. The opposite end of the brace is attached in a second socket to the next upright tee post in the fence line. The brace must be attached at a fixed angle of either 45 degrees or 90 degrees as dictated by the connector selected. Because only the ends of the brace can attach to the upright tee posts, the spacing between consecutive upright posts is dictated by the length of the brace. According to one embodiment of the connector, a pipe can also be slidably connected to the a post, but again only at a fixed 90.degree. angle and there is no means to clamp the pipe to the tee post.
There are many problems with the Wagner patent-type connector. For example, the brace attaches between the upright posts at a fixed angle of either 45.degree. or 90.degree. but no other angle. This could make it extremely difficult or impossible to construct fencing on steep terrain. Additionally, the length of the brace from the manufacturer dictates the spacing between the upright posts. Often it might be desirable to have closer spacing between posts to have a stronger fence in a certain area. A further problem is that the faces of all tee posts in a fence line must be set exactly parallel to the fence line and each other or else the cross brace will not be aligned to attach to an adjacent upright post. The connector also cannot accept posts with different cross-sectional sizes or connect a pipe post to a pipe post. Finally, the connector is difficult to disassemble because the connector is wedged to the tee post.
Blonder, U.S. Pat. No. 3,092,407, discloses a connection system that attaches a bracing pipe post to an upright pipe post at arbitrary angles, but again only an end of the bracing pipe can be connected to the upright post. The system also does not provide for the use of tee post at all. Additionally, an upright pipe post must be anchored in concrete in the ground, which makes it impractical for use on ranches and farms where large expanses of fencing are required.
Accordingly, there is a need for a universal connector which can attach pipe post to pipe post, tee post to pipe post, or tee post to tee post. Additionally, ideally the connector needs to be able to connect these posts at variable angles relative to each other so that the fencing can easily be erected on any terrain, flat, steep or variable. The connector needs to be able to connect to posts with different cross-sectional sizes. There is also a need for a connector which allows for uniform spacing between upright posts despite the fact that the bracing comes in variable lengths. The connector should also allow the brace post to connect either between consecutive upright posts or attach at one end to the upright post and the other end to the ground. Therefore, the primary objective of the present invention is to provide a fence post-and-brace connection that fulfills all these needs.